The St. Louis Cardinals have been consistent at one thing during their disastrous 2023 season: blowing leads. After losing to the Houston Astros Wednesday, the Cardinals lead the National League with 25 blown leads in 79 games, according to MLB.com's John Denton.

The Cardinals had a chance to defeat the defending champion Astros. St. Louis entered the top of the eighth inning with a 7-5 lead, only to give up five runs in what became a 10-7 loss. Jose Altuve hit a three-run home run to give Houston the lead. Jose Abreu launched a two-run homer to put the game out of reach for St. Louis.

Giovanny Gallegos suffered his fourth blown save of the season. The Cardinals' reliever gave up all five runs in the eighth and only recorded two outs.

Holding onto leads could continue to be a problem with closer Ryan Helsley on the injured List. Helsely will soon start throwing again, though it'll be at least another few weeks before he can return to the Cardinals' bullpen.

St. Louis could've had a comfortable late-game lead had Miles Mikolas pitched better. Mikolas gave up five runs in 5.2 innings. Poor starting pitching has been another theme for the Cardinals all season long. Cardinals starting pitchers have combined to throw for a 4.85 ERA. Only the Colorado Rockies and Kansas City Royals have a worse rotation ERA than St. Louis in MLB.

Wednesday's loss dropped the Cardinals to 15-23 at home. St. Louis is quickly falling out of contention in a weak NL Central. The Cardinals are nine games behind the first-place Cincinnati Reds.

The calls for St. Louis to become sellers at the 2023 MLB trade deadline are going to get louder as the team falls further down the standings. Only the Rockies, Royals and Oakland Athletics have a worse winning percentage than the Cardinals.